Reflecting on his topsy-turvy
but mostly heard-earned, lucky,
mostly successful life – okay,
it had been a rollercoaster,
especially hear at what was
surely to be the tail-end por
tion of it – he had never be
lieved in karma. That was
too illogical. Oh, he had his
dreamy fantasies, and for a
man bent on engagement and
logic (to a fault at times), I
mean he was a poet, and he
could let his mind and at times
his body and spirit get caught
up in the big notion of romance,
of love, never fate, he was too
much of a control freak, but he’d
often make big decisions based
on gut instinct and butterfiles,
knowing full well it was not a
leading cause for true success.
Not for him. However, for one
so internally steeped in logic,
he’d lived through some fairly
karmic circumstances, the
biggest example that always
came to mind was that he’d
historically denigrated even
the idea that a long-distance
relationship might be a serious
one at all. One borne of long-
distance, at least. And he’d
think occasionally of the very
attractive man he’d ghosted
after a few dates for the simple
reason that he incessantly eman
ated a dourly pungent odor of
garlic being expelled through
what had to be every single pore
of his body. He would even jok
ingly tell this story if ever the
right time arose. The years
went on and began to take
their toll, most especially be
cause the bright fortunate life
he led from place to place had
taken a tragic turn one mind-
altering day and changed his
life incredibly, and only in the
worst possible ways that seemed
impossible to rise above. Then,
wouldn’t you know it, he found
himself in a long-distance rel
ationship with someone he met
online. And with someone who
seemed as satisfied with the
virtual ways as he was with
physically present and in-
person ways. It went on
for many years, and he
eventually found himself
entering its seventh year
and he’d only had the
pleasure of his company
in the same space for less
than a period of a couple
of weeks. Without going
into any more details or
giving away how that turned
out, there was also the time
he had what he thought an
amazing connection on a date
some time after he’d parted
ways with garlic man. There
seemed such a connection
and on so many levels, but
afterwards when requesting
what he figured would be an
easy second time hanging out,
he was blatantly told it didn’t
seem in the cards because he
didn’t like “the smell of your
clothes.” Well, at least in that
case, crisis averted, I suppose.
As the old man grew closer to
sleep (hopefully just that) one
night late in his life, as he was
thinking about these events in
which he’d been a part of, had
molded his life in perhaps quite
significant ways, each circum
stance, on their own, he recalled
his stance on astrology, which he
thought quite related. He did not
put any credence whatsoever in
the unscientific practice, even as
his world seemed inundated with
examples in which it was taken
severely. But he had found at an
early age how enlightening it might
be, how truly engaging it was, when
one was first getting to know a person
in which there was obvious interest or
expecially attraction, to ask the familiar
“What’s your sign?” question and move
from their to analyses of how each of
their astrological signs gave so many
clues about how terrific (or, heaven
forbit, not terrific) their pairing might
ultimately be. He could not even be
gin to imagine the hour he had spent
in long conversation on that subject
and how it had brought him and the
person with whom he was conversing
most always closer but sometimes
further apart, which could have easily
been taken as proof that astrology was
all but a spot-on science. And that was
his last thought before, lying in bed in
his rather modest-sized apartment where
he’d lived alone ever since that great
tragedy so many years ago, before which
he’d lived such a wonderful blessed life,
if one had been watching over him they
would have noticed the early deep but
fairly quiet intermittent rasps would
occur in which the onlooker could tell
that the old man in the bed were
working his way toward sleep. And
while there was no onlooker, those
intermittent rasps turned quickly
into what would be long, ugly,
extended snoring fits. A nightly
routine the poor man had no idea
of having lived alone for so many years.
